Cost estimate - simple single-family house according to kfW70

Hello,

we are currently building a house ourselves and now have a pretty good overview of the emerging costs.
Your cost breakdown does not include any contingencies.
Unexpected costs can arise just with excavation, house connection costs, and drainage. If there is no money left for that, the entire project fails.
What you should not forget are the monthly additional costs (water, electricity, garbage, insurance...) which are added to your repayment.
Then you said you want to do the electrical installation as well as painting and flooring yourself. But don't forget that this also takes a lot of time and you may have to live with a double burden (rent and loan) for a few months.

All in all, I unfortunately consider your project not feasible. Maybe you should really look into whether you can buy an existing property cheaply and move in without much effort. That way you can gradually improve the house.

Insanity, I am amazed every time by the financial conditions people start such a project with and what expectations they have.

Personally, I would be unhappy to have a half-finished house and live on the "edge." Apparently, we tend to worry too much.

Good luck!

I wouldn’t call living "on the edge" like that ... out of our €2650, we have €1000 left every month and €550 goes towards warm rent – so without rent, there is free capital of €1550 per month – if you assume €900 repayment to the bank and €200 ancillary costs (currently it’s €100), then there is still a buffer of €450 per month – many others who rent don’t have that much left over.

Existing properties are not entirely uninteresting, there is even one in town that is very nice, although the plot is a bit too small, but it costs €183,000 + 7.14% commission = about €196,000 for 134 m² living space and nearly 600 m² plot. For a building year of 2005, I have to assume double the heating costs compared to a current KfW70 house, which reduces repayment options and eats into savings in the long term.

I find it funny that you all talk about naivety – how else should one know better when just starting to deal with it – and naturally, one almost always imagines almost everything easier than it really is.

Of course, own labor also takes up a lot of time, but if the laminate floor is already free, then I would be stupid not to do it myself (just as an example). I also get electrical stuff at cost price, I would first have to find an electrician to install it.

Regarding the issue of hardly calculable additional building costs – you can surely get an expert beforehand to do a soil analysis and check where the connections are, then you should actually be able to estimate the effort quite well.

If unplanned costs should arise, then mother or grandma could also step in with a certain amount to prevent bankruptcy, but for example with my father-in-law (even though the house was cheaper), the financing was much tighter than ours and he also had problems – so it doesn’t have to go wrong ... of course, it’s clear that three vacations a year in Tenerife are not possible, but our demands are quite low and even before the kids want more, the salary has also increased further (I actually can’t earn less than I do now with my qualification).

Naturally, well-paid jobs in the West would be tempting – if it were up to me I would already be there – but I’ve accepted that I will never get my girlfriend to leave here, so that point is probably settled.

By the way, we are the ones who infected our friends and not the other way around – only with them I’m a bit more worried about the financial situation – they earn the same amount, but have less left over than we do (despite an apartment €200 cheaper).

What I never understand are the wildly different cost estimates. Here it says geothermal with surface collector is about €10,000 more expensive than gas + solar ... in another forum, it says that if I dig myself in own labor, the solution would be about the same price. But that little digging can never cost €10,000 (at an hourly wage of say €40, that would be 250 hours!).

Well, I’ll talk to my uncle, who luckily is back from vacation, and we already have an appointment with the bank to determine our financial possibilities. Let’s see what comes of it.

We have the appointment at Sparkasse Leipzig – with which other bank is it still worth making an inquiry? Do banks generally still negotiate a bit on the offered interest rate?

Best regards, Markus

We found ourselves a completely independent banker. Which, by the way, is not really easy. Previously, we had also been to various banks, but what absolutely annoyed us every time was the banks’ statements that they were the best, greatest, and most beautiful ;-)
Our current banker obtained offers from various banks which we then compared. We then chose three banks that would be suitable for us. All three banks wanted to finance us.
In the end, we received a recommendation from our banker on which would be best for us, but the decision was ultimately up to us. We decided on Deutsche Bank.

Hello, we are currently building with Heinz von Heiden. This is the cheapest provider in terms of price. Is that your budget with the plot or without?

I can gladly recommend our construction diary to you, where I have made a detailed cost breakdown including the additional features.

We are paying about €160,000 for a Kfw 70 house with a hipped gable roof, 1.5 stories, but several extra services are already included. Not included are painter and floor covering work, incidental construction costs, outdoor facilities..

Have you already made an appointment at the bank? I think you'll get a "stop" there quite quickly. At least if you play your cards open with them (especially regarding [family planning])